Sports & Recreation

Best Rookie Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach 2006 - Jeremy Hermida

It took about five seconds last August for Hermida to go from anonymous rookie to the answer to a trivia question: Who was the first player since the 19th Century to hit a grand slam in his first big-league at-bat? The six-foot-four outfielder was the 11th overall pick out of high school in the 2002 draft and was considered the Marlins' best hitting prospect even before his right-field grand slam made a game of an eventual 10-5 loss to the Cardinals. That dinger gave him a perfect 4.000 slugging average to start his career. Naturally, it was all downhill from there, but not too far; his season total of .634 was second in the bigs for players with at least 25 at-bats. He finished with a .293 average in 41 at-bats, with four home runs and two doubles among his 12 hits, a ridiculous amount of power for a guy who at the time was just 21 years old. For a team that jettisoned nearly all its big bats in the offseason, Hermida's emergence has been nothing short of grand.